We spend about 5% of our practice time on 1-on-1s. I'd say our players get 20 1-on-1 reps from August to May. We take that approach because in a game, they spend about 99% of their time on defense off the ball and, when we go through the recruiting process, players bring their ego into guarding the ball. Our assumption is that you're getting that player's best self when he's guarding the ball.

What we work toward is getting our best self when we're away from the ball.

Our theme our mantra is unrelenting — we want to exhibit being unrelenting with passion, with humor, regardless of our mood, throughout practice — because being good away from the ball is about being unrelenting.

We let out players know that you can get run by; good players will make good plays. We plan and prepare for the convergence of his greatest move with your greatest mistake.

Predictability We have to know what you'll do 100% of the time; what you'll be 100% of the time. You can't throw an over-the-head check once out of 100 times because that's unpredictable. You can't play for a rollback 10% of the time you're guarding the ball because that's unpredictable.

It makes sense to tailor this conversation toward the style of offense that Jamie discussed. One of the big differences that I see is that his players don't run by you guys, they get by guys.

We like to force offenses to play for a long time. We don't hunt for takeaways; no lead wrap checks, no pinning hands. We poke and lift; we don't take a lot of penalties.

Drills

With the offense working on the goals at either end of the field, I break the 20 or so guys I've got that day into four groups and they work in the alleys while I stand in the middle of the field and can watch all four groups. I work with the upperclassmen in each group to be leaders, to teach and correct throughout the drills. We have a lot of drills, more than a dozen, and a handful that we do at least once per week, some a couple times per week

We want our drills to work on the choreography of slide decisions, to teach that chop/initial point of contact and the second point of contact. We like to teach technique and concepts at the same time. There is nothing more important than the approach. In sliding read the head of the stick of the defender you're sliding to as a barometer of whether or not to go. When you decide to slide, see the man, see the scouting report.

Lastly, we teach communication in our drills. Being loud/having the confidence to be loud is a skill that needs to be taught and learned. In our opinion, not saying anything is worse than saying the wrong thing.

Here are two drills that we do regularly to help teach those principles.

3-on-1

This is a basic drill in which a defender is covering an attackman who's trying to hold, pick and otherwise obstruct his defender while the three other players move the ball around the perimeter and can dodge into the sliding defender. The drill used to practice shedding an offensive player trying to get position or screen a defender. It's good for communication and getting used to properly orienting yourself to the ball.

Cone Touch/Umbrella

In this drill a ball-carrier throws skip passes to dodgers set up on the opposite side of the defender, and each one knows which dodge he'll do off the catch. When the dodger throws the ball back to the original distributor, the defender retreats to the cone and resets, then practices his approach on the next dodger. The repitition of approaches is most valuable, but it instills other good communication and on-ball defensive habits, as well.

Check back for more from the Coaches Summit as I work on turning these notes into posts.